Down In The Valley

Silicon Valley had its finale on Sunday.  Not a moment too soon.  This season was enjoyable, but it felt like we'd seen it before.

In fact, this was the problem with the show in general. They established a formula early on. Our heroes, the underdogs, try to put together a successful tech company. Every time they're on the verge of success, a major, unexpected obstacle gets in their way, which they solve at the last second through some ingenious solution.

There's nothing wrong with the formula, but even before the sixth season it had viewers asking how many times can this happen?  The only question in the finale was was would they end up a success or failure (spoiler alert).

The show played it both ways. What happened was their latest tech, the fulfillment of their dreams, turned out to be too good.  If released, nothing would be safe since it could break through all privacy measures.  So the good guys have to launch but fail, to teach others not to even try to replicate their programming.  Against great odds, they succeed at failing.  So they win--saving the planet from great danger--but also fail in that their company value goes to zero.

The story is told in an unfortunate style--we start with a documentary looking back at what happened ten years ago, when the launch took place.  I'm getting tired of finales that feel they have to do something different, often by going ahead years in the future and showing us things that have little or nothing to do with why we liked the show in the first place.

Nevertheless, Silicon Valley was a fine show--one of the best of the decade--and even if it wasn't as fresh in its later seasons as it was at the beginning, it was never less than entertaining.  I'll miss it.